With a privatecar and driver, a full day tour was arranged around Turpan. It costed us more than 300 RMB, a bit more than reasonable but we were not in a good position to bargain and missed that another place offered it cheaper. It was still a good daytrip with five stops – the flaming mountains, bezeklik caves (although we didn’t enter but instead climbed the mountain behind), Tuyoq, Jianhe ruins (impressive!) and then a natural Karez in a village.

It was a hot day, around 39 degrees, and no shadow. Drank two liter of water and had some great laghman noodles for lunch (in Chinese lamian).

Evening spent planning next leg and then dinner at local nightmarket. It was confirmed that a lot of roads are closed and under construction so can only hope they are repaired done when we get there.

Tags: bezeklik, flaming mountains, Jianhe, karez, Turpan, tuyoq, xinjiang